Starglass

Someone’s rooster had started crowing. Sparrows were waking to life in the barely budded trees that lined the starboard streets. The birds didn’t know any better, that the sky overhead was false, that we’d carried them so, so far away from home.

“Terra Fineberg.”

I hadn’t even realized how my gaze had strayed to the yellowing ceiling panels, until Van’s voice called out to me. I swiveled my head toward the sound. He stood right at the end of the Jacobis’ front walk, looking like a ghost in his mourning clothes. His long hair veiled his face, but I could see that he’d been crying. His eyes were sunken and ringed with red.

“You didn’t even know Benjamin,” he said. A note of accusation rang in his voice. I stumbled to my feet, fixing my hand against the metal railing, whose surface flaked off paint beneath my palm.

“I knew him,” I protested, rushing down the steps. “We spoke the other day on the lift. He wanted me to come see him in the library.”

Van pressed his lips together. “He wasn’t supposed to do that. You’re just a child.”

“I’m not a child!” But my words were whined. I think we both knew how false they were.

“You’re not sixteen yet, Talmid Fineberg.” And then he added, in case I had any doubts: “And you didn’t see anything last night in the engine rooms.”

Now my cheeks burned. I lifted my chin, looking squarely at Van. He wasn’t very tall, though his shoulders were broad, imposing beneath white cloth. “I did see,” I whispered, as much to myself as to Van. “I know I did.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He started taking wide steps toward the door.

I waited until his hand closed around the doorknob to say it. Standing tall, I threw my tangled hair over my shoulders.

“Liberty on Earth.”

He froze, his fingers tense against the door. But he didn’t turn or speak.

“Liberty on Zehava. I heard, Van. I heard him say it. Treason. Those words are treason. They taught us in school that—”

“Shh!” Van gave a hiss. His eyes were narrowed down to slivers, jaded flints like broken glass. But then the clock tower bells rang out nine o’clock. At the sound, low and droning, Van’s stiff posture began to soften. He started to shake his head.

“Van? Terra?”

We both turned. Standing on the street behind me was Koen Maxwell. His pale cheeks were ruddy, his shaggy hair disheveled. He’d already changed out of his mourning garb, dressing himself in the familiar wool and corduroy of the clock keeper. The heavy coat fit him poorly. His long, pale wrists showed beneath the cuffs.

“Koen. Shouldn’t you be at work?” I squinted at him, wondering what that broad smile was doing lighting up his face.

“Shouldn’t you?” he asked, letting out a small, awkward laugh. I stared at him. This was no time for laughter.

“Yeah,” I said. “I suppose I should.”

Van’s fingers were still curled around the doorknob, but it seemed he couldn’t make his feet move forward. Finally his eyes darted up at me, sharp and hard.

“Remember what I said, Terra. You’re a child. You didn’t see anything.”

With that, he threw the door open and slammed it behind him. Koen watched him leave.

“I wonder what that was about,” he said. I looked at him, at his rumpled hair and his jangly smile. He had the sort of kind, open features that made you want to tell him all your secrets. It was a dangerous sort of face.

“I have no idea,” I said, and hustled down the empty street.

7

My second day at work was hardly any better than my first. Mara kept me running through the greenhouses, snipping branches, pressing them between the pages of the field guide. I kept turning down the wrong corridor. Before I knew it, I stood lost in a hothouse full of fruit trees, or an enclosed field of purple grains. After only a few hours sweat poured down my face in little rivers. Thorns had worked their way into the weave of my lab coat. That morning, after the dreams, and the funeral, and my visit to the Jacobis’ home, I was exhausted, too, and it felt like my head was wrapped in cotton gauze. When I stopped inside the lab before lunch, offering Mara the heavy tome, I almost didn’t notice how she looked at me—her close-set eyes narrowed, as if she’d been chewing over some idea.

“Did you know him?” she asked, tossing the book onto her desk without looking at it. It fell with a heavy thud.

“Know who?”

“Jacobi. You know.” She waved her hand at me. “The dead guy.”

Her thin lips curled, showing her pale gums. Her pointed jaw was tight. I wondered if this might be a test, sent by Van Hofstadter himself. But I knew that was a ridiculous idea—what use would Mara have for someone like Van? She hardly had any patience for me.

“No, not really.” It wasn’t a lie, of course, so I shrugged and shoved my hands down into the pockets of my coat. Mara studied me.

“Good,” she said at last. “Good. You’re young, Terra. There’s no telling the kinds of wind that might sweep you up.”

“What do you mean?”

“Jacobi and his ilk. Rabble-rousers, all of them. Convinced the golden light of justice shines right down on their empty heads.” Mara snorted laughter. Deep inside my pockets I dug my fingernails into my palms, trying to stop myself from remembering the impassioned words that had spilled, quick as blood, from Mar Jacobi’s mouth.

Liberty on Earth . . .

“Don’t worry,” I said, though my throat and lips felt dry, my tongue huge and awkward in my mouth. “I’ve never been much of a joiner.”

“Good!” Mara said, and she gave my shoulder a hearty thump. I swayed on my feet from the force of it. “A woman after my own heart.”

* * *

I was surprised to come home that night to find our quarters bright and busy, clouded by the perfume of frying onions and garlic and spice. Hannah stood behind the stove, stirring something into a pan of hot oil. And my brother was at the galley table peeling pale carrots.

“Terra!” Hannah said, smiling wide at my arrival as I hung up my bag by the door. Pepper didn’t run to greet me like he usually did, begging for food as though he might starve to death at any moment. Apparently, his belly was already full—he’d curled up to sleep at the end of the table.

“What are you guys doing here?” I asked. I peeled off my mud-stained lab coat and draped it over one of the chairs, watching my brother as he sliced a long, gnarled root in two.

I’d intended my words for Ronen, but he didn’t even look up at me. Instead Hannah gave a happy hum and answered for both of them.

“We thought we’d come by and make you two dinner. Thought you might need it, after what happened this morning.”

My mind drifted to the memory of Mar Jacobi’s body swaddled tightly in white cloth. As if I could forget it for even a moment. “Oh,” I said. “That.”

Hannah looked at me meaningfully. Then she brought over a bowl of ground lamb and set it before me.

“No one eats free in my kitchen,” she said with a wink.

This isn’t your kitchen, I thought. But I went and washed my hands anyway.